I spent the last two days talking about how I’m starting to feel pretty good about this offense, and then they get shut down by the Atlanta Braves. Wenceel Perez's 2-run shot in the 9th was the Tigers' only salvation. Look, Martin Perez has been in the league for a long time. I’m not going to act like the Tigers were facing some AAA bum, but he is the kind of pitcher that the Tigers struggle against. They love getting shut down by those soft-tossing lefties, and that’s what we saw tonight.
A single loss on the road against a team that’s playing some of the best baseball of anybody is not by itself a demoralizing defeat, but this was in some ways disastrous, because the Tigers took two pretty important players out of the game because of injury. This is pure speculation on my part, but I don’t think that Casey Mize will be out long-term. It’s frustrating that he was taken out of the game so early, but it doesn’t appear like there are any arm issues to worry about. Something like a groin strain can linger for a while, but I don’t see it as something we need to worry about long-term. The Baez injury, on the other hand, looked awful. I’m not gonna speculate on exactly what it was. But I don’t think I’m out of line for saying that it looked really bad. Anytime you have to get the cart out, it often leads to long-term injuries. Hopefully, they avoided disaster.
If there’s any silver lining tonight, the middle relief in this bullpen, which was thrust into duty early because of the Casey Mize injury, held its own. It didn’t make much of a difference because the offense didn’t do anything, but Brant Hurter and Butch Smith each put together solid outings. It may not have helped them win tonight‘s game, but Detroit is going to have to find relief pitching throughout this season. The trade deadline is a long way away. Someone is going to have to emerge, and simply getting those innings without having to burn any of your high-leverage guys is a small victory tonight, even if it wasn’t reflected on the scoreboard.
Tarik Skubal will pitch for the Tigers tomorrow. He pitched in Atlanta two years ago in what was possibly the worst start of his first Cy Young campaign. He will be going up against rookie JR Ritchie.